Rachel’s heart had begun to rise as his explanation proceeded, but now it fell again. So there was a chance that LouLou might not be the culprit, but the alternate possibility was almost anyone else, too broad a group to help exclude LouLou. There seemed to be no way to avoid the possibility that she was a murderess.
Chapter Seventeen
A knock on the door interrupted these thoughts. “Come!” Boussicault called.
A tall man came in. “Homer Stibb.” He held out his hand to Boussicault. “University of Central Tennessee.”
He wore aviator glasses and a short-sleeved checked shirt over chinos; his curly hair seemed slightly dusty, as if he had begun to resemble the books he worked with.
Boussicault ignored the hand and gestured to the chair across the table. “Please have a seat, Monsieur Stibb, and tell us what brings you to the library.”
“Well.” Stibb settled in the chair. He made a curious gesture, rolling his lips in and out, before he continued. “I’m a professor of medieval French literature. At the University of Central Tennessee, like I said. I’m here working on a project about medieval cipher manuscripts—you know, manuscripts written in code.” Rachel must have shown her surprise that such things existed, because he angled himself to look directly at her. “Yeah. There are more of them than you’d think.” He turned back so he was facing them both. “I’m comparing them to the nonciphered books and manuscripts they mention to see how the ciphers connect. And a number of those manuscripts are here.”
“I see.” The capitaine tapped his fingers on the table for a moment. “And how long have you been in Paris?”
Rachel paid closer attention now that she knew the purpose of the question. “Since last Saturday,” said Stibb. “My plane arrived at seven forty-five in the morning.”
“And you’ve been working in the reading room every day since then?”
“Well, since the Monday after that, yes. Last Monday.”
“And what time did you arrive at the Bibliothèque this morning?”
“Mmm …” It was Stibb’s turn to drum his fingers. “Eight forty-five? At least, I remember that Aurora arrived a few minutes later, and she usually gets here around ten to.” He lowered his voice as if confiding a guilty secret. “She smokes. And she likes to have a cigarette before she starts work.”
“Ah. And while you were waiting for the doors to open, did you see anything unusual?”
“Unusual? What do you mean, unusual?”
“Just anything you might have noticed that seemed out of the ordinary. Or that you might have noticed because it seemed out of the ordinary.”
“Well …” Professor Stibb rolled his lips in and out again, sucking in his cheeks. He gazed into space just as Dale and Cavill had. “I’m not sure. I mean, I’m really not sure.” He thought again, then said hesitantly, “Now that I’m focusing, I think I did see someone going around the back of the building. Maybe ten or so minutes before the doors opened? I remember it was right as Aurora was finishing her cigarette, because I was thinking how gross cigarette smoke smells and reminding myself not to sit next to her. And then in the distance behind her came this … person.”
Boussicault asked his usual, “Can you give a more precise description?”
Again Professor Stibb gazed into space; again he rolled his lips and sucked in his cheeks. At last he said, “They were … tall? I remember that. And a jacket; I think they were wearing a jacket. Yes”—his tone became more animated—“or something dark, some dark sort of clothing.” He looked at the capitaine. “Does that help?”
“Very much. And what about gender? Could you say whether it was a man or a woman?”
Stibb frowned. “Not really. I guess maybe a man, but I’m just saying that because of the height.” He smiled. “Don’t quote me on it.”
Boussicault said only, “Thank you. Now, please, tell me where you’re staying while you’re in Paris.”
“The Hotel Palais, just around the corner.” Stibb shrugged. “It’s only two stars, but it’s near the books.”
“We would ask that you not leave for a few days.”
“Of course, of course.” He nodded, then added as if to himself, “Yes, Aurora said it was a murder.”
To this the capitaine also made no response, merely gave a curt nod and half rose from his chair. Stibb let himself out.
Boussicault exhaled. “So, three witnesses have seen this tall person. In a jacket or not in a jacket, at ten to nine or five to nine, but always tall and wearing something dark.” After a pause he said, “And now we have one more interview. I need to talk to Docteure Dwamena.”
“Really? She met me when I arrived at the library. She was next to me when LouLou started screaming!”
“Yes.” Boussicault nodded grave agreement. “But where was she before that?”
Chapter Eighteen
Boussicault opened the door and nodded at someone outside. Docteure Dwamena entered. Then she stopped.
“Rachel?”
The capitaine gestured toward a chair, waiting for her to sit down. Then he explained, “Rachel is working with me. In fact, she has been working with me for the past few weeks. After Monsieur Laurent’s death Raida Dounôt and I agreed it might be wise to have someone on the inside, since one possibility was that his murderer might have worked at the library.” Rachel admired the vagueness of that “might have worked.” Boussicault continued, “I asked Rachel to work here to see what she could find out about Laurent’s colleagues. In case there was something significant.” His voice weakened on the last sentence, as if he had only just realized how distressing this revelation might be. Rachel, too, suddenly felt guilty for what she now understood was an ongoing trick she’d played on her colleagues.
Docteure Dwamena’s expression didn’t change. The skin around her eyes tightened for a moment, but she said, “I understand.”
“I’m sorry.” Boussicault sounded as if he really was.
Unexpectedly, Docteure Dwamena waved a dismissive hand. “I think we have more pressing concerns now. And perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea. After all, look at what’s been happening. First Laurent, then the book, and now this!” She folded her hands in her lap, but Rachel could see the tips of her fingers digging into the flesh beneath them.
“Yes.” The capitaine shared her sorrow for a moment. When he began speaking again, to Rachel’s surprise he didn’t ask about Giles Morel. “How long have you worked here, Docteure?” His tone was conversational.
“Fifteen years. I started in 2000.”
“As head of this department?”
“No, no.” She smiled. “I began in cataloging. At that point we were just beginning to switch to the Internet as our primary interface, and it was my job to think about how to position the Rare Books and Manuscripts catalog so the public could know easily what we had and how to find it.”
“And how long have you been head of Rare Books and Manuscripts?”
“Almost ten years. Since the autumn of 2005.”
“Do you enjoy it?”
“Yes, very much.”
“All the time?”
“Well”—she smiled—“no job is enjoyable all the time. But I’ve enjoyed it for the most part, with some occasional dissatisfactions.” Rachel saw that her fingers had unhooked; her hands were now clasped softly in her lap.
Boussicault leaned forward. “I was interested by what you just said, grouping Monsieur Morel’s death with the theft from the book and the death of Monsieur Laurent. If you don’t mind, I’d like to begin by asking you some questions about Monsieur Laurent, since his murder is still unsolved.” Docteure Dwamena nodded. “Was he one of the job’s dissatisfactions?”
“He was certainly a grain of sand in my shell.”
“Did it irritate you that you couldn’t turn him into a pearl?”
The doctor crossed her ankles and sat up straight. “Capitaine, it may surprise you to hear me say this, but until recently Laurent didn’t need smoothing in any area
that concerned me. He was an excellent librarian.”
What makes an excellent librarian? Rachel wondered. Did he always check the date on his book stamp? Did he have an especially fierce shush?
As if reading her mind, Docteure Dwamena offered a more serious answer. “He knew how to build a collection. He could spot gaps in our holdings that, when we made acquisitions to fill them, became new connections for scholars and made us unique among national libraries. He had a superb sense for the possibilities of holdings. In that way, he was a great asset.”
“But not in other ways? After all, he was quite deliberately antagonizing your employees.”
“Yes, I knew about his personality.” She sighed. “He was a true sadist. Not a sexual sadist, but someone who loved to cause people emotional pain, ideally lasting emotional pain. When he first began working here, I was made aware of some behaviors, but after a couple of warnings it stopped being a problem in the workplace. Until recently. I knew what he did to Giles and to LouLou, of course”—she sighed again—“but as you must know, there is a great deal of difference between knowing things and being able to prove them. And proof is what matters to an employment tribunal.” She spread her hands. “You can’t fire a man for breaking his coworker’s heart, and with Giles—well, there was a chance, however small, that Giles could have left his locker unlocked, or that someone unknown tampered with his manuscript.”
“But if you can’t fire someone,” Boussicault said, echoing Rachel’s thoughts, “removing them another way comes to look very attractive.”
“But murder is a rather extreme form of removal. And what if they have saving graces? As I say, he was a gift to the profession.” She gave a tiny smile. “As it happens, I had begun the process of having him transferred to the Mitterand site, so that they might benefit from his talents. With a nice raise, so he wouldn’t be inclined to angle for my job here.”
Checkmate, Rachel thought. Even Boussicault looked impressed. He continued, “Now, tell me, Docteure, what did you do this morning before the library opened?”
She gave him a level look. “From seven-thirty to eight AM, I was in the Café Korcarz having a croissant and coffee, as I am every morning before work. I then walked here, arriving at eight thirty, as I usually do. From eight thirty to nine I was on the telephone with our conservation team. They are about to take annual holiday, and we were covering some final issues before they did so. At nine I went to the side door to let Rachel in.”
“I hope you don’t mind my saying that we will check all this.” She nodded, and Boussicault scarcely took a breath before he moved on. “Now we come to Morel. Was he a gift to the profession?”
The smile vanished. “No. He was a man with hopes beyond his talent.” She looked sad. “And without any self-awareness.”
“And Madame Fournier, what is she like?”
Docteure Dwamena pressed her lips together before she spoke. “Yes. Yes, that is the question, isn’t it? You know all about her assault, I assume?” When Boussicault nodded, she went on. “Before that, she was very shy. Quiet, sweet-tempered … But she changed. Immediately after the attack she became very fearful, very fearful. She showed me a knife that she kept in her bag; she told me she held on to it as she walked home every day, just in case. But then she got survivor’s counseling, and things were much better. She and Giles were friends, you know. He was very supportive—he was a little in love with her, I think. But then Laurent—” She looked at Boussicault. “I don’t have to tell that story, do I?” He shook his head. “Thank God. He ruined her. He really did. Salaud. He confirmed what she feared about men. In fact, he did worse. After the attack she was afraid of dangerous men. He convinced her that all men are dangerous.”
Just at that moment, as if on cue, the door opened and the young blond brigadier came in. He leaned over Boussicault and whispered in his ear. The capitaine stood. “Pardon, mesdames. I will return in a moment.”
LouLou and Docteure Dwamena sat silent. At last Rachel said, “I’m sorry.”
“De rien.”
“I really enjoyed working here.”
“I’m glad.”
The door reopened, admitting Boussicault. In his hands was a large plastic bag, doubled over and stained rusty at the bottom. Sitting down, he put it on the table. “Docteure, would you be willing to tell us if you recognize this item?”
At some point, Rachel was sure, Docteure Dwamena’s composure would crack, but this was not to be that moment. The doctor nodded, her only sign of tension being that she pressed her lips together once again. The capitaine unfolded the bag.
Rachel leaned forward, too. She saw a serrated knife, its blade around five inches long. It was the knife that LouLou had been holding. Dried blood coated its tip and sharp edge, but its riveted handle was completely clean, and the tip was smudged where LouLou had held it.
“Do you recognize this?”
The skin around the doctor’s eyes pinched again. “It’s a steak knife.”
“Yes, but is it one you’ve seen before? Is it at all familiar?”
Docteure Dwamena leaned back and flicked up her eyes to meet Boussicault’s. “I know what you’re asking, but I couldn’t say.”
“Couldn’t say, or can’t say? One is definitive, but the other implies a personal choice.” Abruptly, Boussicault’s tone became hectoring. “Which is it: you don’t recognize, or you prefer not to admit that you do?”
“All right.” Docteure Dwamena looked down at the knife, then back up at the capitaine again. “I want to say first that this is an ordinary steak knife. I have seen thousands like it at restaurants or in people’s homes. But … yes. It does look like the knife Louise Fournier had in her bag last year.”
She looked at Boussicault. Boussicault looked at the knife. Rachel looked at Boussicault. His face said the interviews were over.
Chapter Nineteen
The next day at breakfast Rachel told Alan all about the interviews. When she finished, he shook his head. “It doesn’t look good for LouLou.”
Rachel really did not want LouLou to have murdered Giles. Hadn’t the poor woman suffered enough? “But what’s her motive? And what about this tall person?”
“I thought you said she was tall.” Alan took a bite of his croissant, and a few crumbs drifted onto the tablecloth. “As for motive, I’d think a police interview with her would help uncover that. They have one scheduled, right?”
“Yes. She was still sedated when we finished yesterday, but I assume they’ll let me know when she’s ready.”
“Okay, so then you’ll know more about her possible motives.” He bent his head over his tablet.
How could he be so unengaged? How could he not want to run over scenarios with her? “But what about other possible suspects?”
He scrolled down the screen. “I thought Boussicault didn’t think there were any other possible suspects.”
“That was for Laurent’s murder. Now everything’s changed. LouLou would want to kill Laurent, but why would she want to kill Giles? They used to be friends.”
He looked up reluctantly. “And she used to date Laurent. People kill former friends all the time.” Seeing her face, he sighed and put down the tablet. “Okay. You told me she’d been assaulted, right? And that she’d started carrying a knife afterward? Well, maybe he startled her in the stacks, or they got into some kind of argument, and she’s got the knife. So she stabs him.” He took his dishes into the kitchen.
Rachel bit her thumbnail as she considered his scenario. “LouLou locks her bag in her locker, so she wouldn’t have had the knife with her—assuming she’s even still carrying it.”
He shrugged. “Well, then, I got it wrong.” He put his jacket over his arm. “Look, I’m sorry, but I need to go to work. You were at all the interviews, so you’re more likely to come up with a good idea than I am. I have faith in you.” They kissed, and Rachel listened to the door thump shut behind him.
She had indeed been at the interviews. So what did she
know? Well, she knew all the addresses. She tried to smile at this feeble joke, then frowned. No, seriously, who else looked good for it? She thought for a long time. Well, all of them. Except for Katja Bonsergent all of the current patrons of the Rare Books and Manuscripts reading room had been working in the library long enough to have interacted with Giles. And they’d all said they’d arrived early yesterday, but none of them had spoken to the others when they got there. Which meant no one could back them up, which in turn meant any of them could be lying and could in fact have been killing Giles.
And yet—she rose and took her own dishes to the sink—at the same time none of them was obviously good for it. They’d all said separately that they’d seen a someone tall going around the back of the Bibliothèque, which meant they independently corroborated each other’s alibis. Besides, if she couldn’t see a motive for LouLou, what motive could one of the patrons possibly have?
God, how did detectives do this alone? No wonder they always had some sidekick to run their ideas past. Her fingers itched to pick up her portable, but she held back. Magda had insulted her, had … had impugned her character. She wasn’t going to climb down first.
As if understanding, the portable rang. She snatched it up. “’Allo?”
“Rachel. Boussicault.” His tone was calm, but she heard barely suppressed excitement beneath. “I wanted to let you know of a development. The scene-of-the-crime agents found something while they were making their final sweep.” He took a breath. “Pardon. Let me explain. A final sweep extends out further than the other searches. It’s designed to make certain that the agents have missed nothing, to avoid nasty surprises in court.”
Get on with it, Rachel thought. She’d watched Forensic Files; she knew how it worked. But all she said was, “Uh-huh.”
“The sweep extended to the adjacent aisle. And, as I say, it uncovered something.” He paused. “On the floor one aisle over.” He paused again.
The Books of the Dead Page 10